Ghost
by Ereinion
Summary: A ghost is haunting the Last Homely House in the early Third Age. Complete.


Ghost, by Ereinion  
  
When Elrohir told me that there was a ghost living in the manor, I didn't believe him. I suppose that was my first mistake, not listening to the seven-year-old who has more elven blood than I. But there were none of the strange happenings that one would usually associate with a haunting: no mysteriously moved or misplaced objects, no eerie feelings of coldness or anxiety upon walking into a room. In fact, the manor seemed more peaceful than usual, reminescent of a time before my sons arrived. I can't even say that the abnormally high number of near-disasters concerned me. I thought we were all blessed with an extraordinary allotment of dumb luck. It never even occured to me that there might be unseen influence.  
  
And then I started seeing the apparation too.  
  
At first, I only saw it for fractions of a moment out of my peripheal vision. It was easy to dismiss the sightings as figments of my imagination or the result of an overtired mind. And then things started to go missing. I found trinkets in the twins' room on many occasions. They kept telling me it wasn't their fault, but of course Celebrían and I didn't believe them.  
  
This went on for a year when things suddenly ... stopped. The twins stopped talking about their ghost, things quit going missing. I learned later that it wasn't that these things actually happened, but rather the twins hid them from me. I occasionally saw them dancing in circles around something that wasn't there, but they were children and I thought naught of it. When they discovered little things in their room, they were quick to put them back where they belonged. I only discovered this when I questioned them about it, and I only questioned them when I truly saw the spirit for myself.  
  
It was a stormy night. The wind howled loudly in the valley with the usual violence of a springtime tempest. The thunder was loud and lightning lit the sky, and cold rain pelted the ground. I had awoken for some reason I cannot now remember, and the thought had occured to me that I should check on my sons. Their door was open, which wasn't such an uncommon thing in those days, but when I gazed inside, my heart was gripped with fear. I could see the ghost there, pale and translucent, sitting on the bed where Elladan and Elrohir had curled up together to hide from the storm.  
  
For a moment, I couldn't move, couldn't breathe; all I felt was terror. I saw the ghostly hand reach out and touch Elrohir's cheek, stroking the unmarred flesh with its thumb. To my immense surprise, Elrohir quieted -- and it was then that I realized that the apparation wasn't going to hurt my boys, but rather, he was there to comfort them. The spirit waited for a few moments, making sure that both children were safe from nightmares, then placed something on their bedside table and disappeared without turning toward me.  
  
I slowly recovered myself, testing my legs to make sure I could walk correctly before slipping into my twins' room and reaching out a shaky hand to the object on the bedside. It was a ring, familiar to me, but not one that had ever gone missing before. I turned it over to see the jewelled face, knowing what I would see, wondering at its symbolism. I stood there for a long moment, just looking down at the sapphire and diamonds, before slipping the ring onto my finger and returning to my own room, though I found no sleep there.  
  
The scene kept replaying in my mind throughout the night, picking out details I knew would be there yet didn't want to admit. The shade's semblence of clothing, the form it took, the grace with which it moved... It was painful to think about, yet I could not stop my thoughts from continuing their wild path. Before I knew it, I had left my bed and wrapped myself in my thick robe of office and taken to a secluded grove on the banks of one of the Bruinen's tributaries. Few came to this place, even in good weather, for the obvious reason that it was a place that demanded deep reverence. A single, well-kept memorial statue stood there, the perfect image of a thinker, a warrior, a leader. Lindon had their own memorial for their fallen High King, but this hidden grove, beneath sheltering willows and oaks, was where I had often stolen away with my lover.  
  
I cannot say that I cared that I was soaked to the skin and shivering in the cold. I cannot say for sure when hot tears began to mix with the cold, stinging rain on my face. I only know that I sat beneath a centuries-old willow, my arms wrapped about my knees, and mourned again the loss I'd thought many times that I had come to terms with. There are no words to describe the aching hurt that didn't stop at my chest and moved to encompass throat, neck, and abdomen. I could not breathe in more than halting gasps, and I truly felt that I was going to die from the agony of grief. I had been comforted before by the thought that my love had gone to the Halls of Waiting, that one day I might see him again. But for this new revelation there was no solace. He had turned from Mandos and instead walked the lonely middle-road of those fëar who remain where spirits should not belong.  
  
"Ai, Ereinion..." I sobbed, feeling too weak to move, to breathe, to live. I felt his arms around me, his chin resting on my shoulder, and I would've died then had he not spoken softly in my ear.  
  
"I chose to stay with you," his voice said. I did not hear it the way I thought I should, in my right ear. It was as if his soft voice filled the rainy grove, carried on the wind. "Please do not leave me, leave them. They need you so much."  
  
I couldn't bear to answer, to turn and look at him. It felt so much like he was really there; I didn't want to see otherwise. I felt pressure, the feeling of something against my body. There was no warmth as there should've been, but I tricked myself into thinking it was the cold rain that made it so. And the tingling I felt where our forms met, that was only desire.  
  
"Stay with me," I begged at length. "Don't leave me again."  
  
I could feel him smile softly. "I never left you. I've always been with you, and I always will be. You have to get up and move, go back to your wife and sons. This place will only bring you sorrow right now."  
  
I didn't know ghosts could pick up things much heavier than rings or hair clips, but I know it was not my own power that caused me to stand, to start walking back toward the house. He stayed with me, propeling me forward until I reached the bedchamber Celebrían and I shared. I remember stripping out of my soaked robe and nightclothes and crawling under the welcoming blankets.  
  
I woke up two afternoons later, horribly disoriented but with a great deal more calm and centered. I did not know it at the time, but my students had been in and out, checking on me throughout what they informed me was a textbook healing trance. But at the time, all I really cared about were the two beautiful elflings curled up on either side of me, who, once they discovered I was awake, were all over me with hugs and kisses.  
  
"Nana says you stayed out all night in the rain and got sick!" Elladan told me. "But we're glad you're better."  
  
Elrohir nodded. "Erei came to visit. He said he talked to you and sent you back inside to get better. He also said we're supposed to have the silver beads. Do you know what he means, Ada?"  
  
I smiled and sent Elladan to get my jewelry box. The hair beads had been one of Ereinion's favorite things; they had disappeared often -- the twins had been swatted across the rear end on more than one occasion when I'd thought they were stealing them -- but now I knew why they had perennially caught the pilferer's attention.  
  
I took out the matched set from their little velvet pouches and sat each boy down in my lap to braid the ornaments in, and they were surprisingly still and patient while I styled their hair. Once I was finished, however, they practically knocked me to the mattress once more with hugs, then trotted off to show their mother. I couldn't help but smile. They were the most perfect treasures in all Arda, and they had the best godfather anyone could ask for.  
  
I looked down at Ereinion's sigil-ring on my finger. Love overflowed my heart, and I worried that I might start crying again. He loved me enough in life to forsake the Halls of Mandos in death, to stay with me and protect my family when he could have rested or been rehoused in a new hroa. Nothing, before his death or since, has brought me more comfort than knowing that. 


End file.
